Guinness World Records

Candid camera

The encyclopedia of the extremes reflects the changing concerns of modern society

IN THE past year a man has released 40 mousetraps on his tongue in a minute, a woman has washed up 2,250 pots and plates in eight hours (pictured) and 11,062 different penguin-related items have been assembled. These are among the new entries in the “Guinness World Records 2012”, an annual compendium of trivia released on September 15th.

Created in Britain in 1955, the first edition, then known as the “Guinness Book of Records”, was a marketing tool: a compilation of interesting facts distributed to pub landlords to promote Guinness, an Irish drink. Now this encyclopedia of extremes draws its statistics from around the world and is the bestselling copyright title of all time (a category that excludes books such as the Bible and the Koran), selling 120m copies in over 100 countries and spawning all sorts of copycat miscellanies.

Before internet search engines or the omnivorous Wikipedia, the “Guinness Book of Records” was already a popular trove of trivia. Its success lay in tapping into man's innate curiosity about the natural world around him: the first edition included details such as the brightest star in the heavens (the Dog Star) and the biggest spider's body (9cm long).

The “Guinness Book of Records” also included human achievements. It was a precursor of reality television in giving ordinary people a chance to become famous for eccentric, often pointless, tasks. Even the first edition included a man who consumed 24 raw eggs in 14 minutes and a woman legally married 14 times; in 1979, a man yodelled non-stop for ten and a quarter hours. Social mores have changed the nature of some antics: gone is the 1974 caper of smoking 110 cigarettes at a time for 30 seconds, for example, as well as feats of derring-do with alcohol.

People are intrinsically interested in the superlatives of human experience, thinks Nick Couldry of Goldsmiths, University of London. But, as elsewhere in the media, this compendium has increasingly favoured ephemeral stunts. Pictures now dominate a once text-heavy book. Educational facts are fewer and less comprehensive: details about the Egyptian pyramids this year share a page with the tallest ice-cream pyramid, made up of 3,100 dollops of Baskin-Robbins.

The original book was there for swots to look up and learn the facts, says Mr Couldry. Now, people would apparently rather read about a 22-year-old English builder who scoffed two bags of watercress in under a minute. Nearly 60 years on, the “Guinness World Records” is still offering insights into the highs and lows of modern life.